Chapter Text
Steve waved at Clint and Natasha with a wide smile and turned to walk to his next classroom. Statistics. A course he had to take in order to graduate, even though it seemed really boring and he didn't really see how it would help him in the future. With some other classmates he knew a little, he walked towards the room ... and froze in the door frame, like all the others. For a moment, they stared unblinking at the teacher sitting in his chair, feet settled on the desk and a Starbucks coffee in his hand. There were a few other cups on his desk.
"You're coming in or not?"
Steve was the first to emerge from his stupor and walk in the room. He chose a desk in the front row and cast a glance at the teacher. The man seemed a few years older than Steve probably. Steve frowned. That man certainly was not the real teacher, he looked young and, well, way too good, according to Steve. He had pictured an old man, after the name on his schedule. Instead, he had in front of him a weird kind of super model or whatever. The teacher finally stood up and gulped down the rest of his coffee.
"Damn it, there are really eighteen of you?! They said I'd get a small class ... Alright welcome to Stats, aka fucking stupid subject that isn't even real maths. Before you ask any question, I don't know what happened to your teacher. Maybe he poked a stick at a grizzly bear when he last went camping or he tried to get his toast out with a fork ... But now I'm the new teacher."
He rolled his eyes as someone raised his hand.
"What's your name and how old are you?"
"I'm Tony Stark. Did you know that it's not very polite to ask a teacher's age? I did it once and I got spanked- or maybe it's because I blew the lab up -Anyway, my point is, do you want me to spank you with that freaking huge syllabus until you can't sit anymore? No? Well I'm thirty and I hope that was your last question of the year."
This response triggered a ton of comments among the students.
"Do you have the qualifications, man? You can't possibly be the teacher, you don't look like one."
"I graduated from MIT at nineteen with two PhDs. Engineering and physics. Yep, I'm a genius, you'll get used to it. From now on you will refer to me as 'Sir' or 'Mr Stark'. I won't tolerate affronts in here."
Steve bit his lip. It was impossible. He raised his hand before blurting out:
"Impossible. That would mean you entered MIT at-"
"Fifteen, yeah."
Tony raised one hand, showing everybody his ring finger. Everybody could now cast a surprised look at his Brass Rat. A golden MIT class ring, and judging by its look, it was not a so recent one. At least ten years old or something, 'cause everybody knows they change the ring a little every year.
"Suck on that"
Steve was, like most of the students, stunned. Nobody tried to argue again and the silence fell on the class. Tony didn't even crack a smile and only grabbed a pile of books, throwing loudly a syllabus on each desk while walking between the rows. When he was done, he returned to the front of the class and sat on the corner of his own desk.
"You, tall blond in the front row. Yeah, you. Read page 2."
Steve quickly opened his book and looked at the second page.
"One important use of descriptive statistics is to summarize a collection of data in a clear and understandable way. There are two basic methods: numerical and graphical. Using the numerical approach one might compute statistics such as the mean and standard deviation. Using the graphical approach one might create a stem and leaf display and a box plot. For example-"
"Cut short, Blondie. Move on to page 3."
Frowning, Steve turned the page and started reading again.
"Inferential statistics are used to draw inferences about a population from a sample. There are two main methods used in inferential statistics: estimation and hypothesis testing. In estimation, the sample is used to estimate a parameter and a confidence interval about the estimate is constructed. In the most common use of hypothesis testing, a 'straw man' null hypothesis is put forward and it is determined whether the data are strong enough to reject it. For exam-"
"Great! How boring was that! Any questions so far?"
Everybody understood that it was a rhetorical question. Steve wanted to ask why he had to skip the examples. Isn't it what helps people understand, usually? But just like the others, he didn't say a word. A thousand questions were running through his mind. Why was Mr. Stark here when he seemed to hate the subject and only have a very faint interest in teaching? The teacher clearly didn't expect any questions and kept looking at the coffee waiting on his desk as if its appeal was irresistible. What kind of teacher was that? Why him and not someone competent for the job?
The teacher grabbed another cup of coffee and took a long sip. He then turned on his laptop and in a few clicks, he opened a PowerPoint full of definitions projected on the white screen in front of the class so the students could copy the notes. Steve fumbled for some paper and quickly started writing. For the next few minutes, it was so silent you could hear a pin drop. There was only the scratching noises of the pencils on the paper and the noises Tony made while texting. Fucking texting in the middle of a class, sitting at his desk and barely keeping an eye on the students to know when he should change the slide. Steve finally dropped his pencil and looked around him. Everybody was done but no one spoke to let Tony know. They were mostly waiting for him to notice. Steve used that moment to look more closely at the teacher. He was annoying as hell with his lack of interest and his weird teaching methods, but gosh, he was totally hot. He had gorgeous chocolate brown eyes and messy brown hair and his goatee somehow gave him a lot more sex appeal, although he already had a lot. Steve found himself unable to look away, his eyes following the curve of Tony's strong jaw. Suddenly, Tony's lips parted into the most beautiful smile Steve had ever seen and for a second he almost felt sorry that he didn't put it there. He stared for what felt like hours until, all of a sudden, the man raised his head and locked eyes with Steve. For a long minute, they stared at each other. The class held its breath.
"What is it that you want, handsome?"
Steve flushed immediately and swallowed hard. Alright, flirting. He could do with flirting, just give him a moment to adjust to this man, gosh...
"We're done, Doctor Stark ..."
Tony blinked with surprise as the class burst in laughter. Of course, Steve had taken advantage of the situation since Tony was pretty show off with his two PhDs. The man quickly regained composure and looked at the rest of the class. He then nodded and closed the PowerPoint, to Steve's surprise. That was it? No more notes? There were still twenty minutes left and they surely didn't copy all the slides. So why was the man turning the projector off?
"Thank god I went through more than the half of this class ... Class dismissed, see ya all tomorrow!"
Steve's eyebrows shot up in astonishment. An awkward silence followed Tony's words, then everybody stood up in a single movement and, books under their arms, they headed for the door. Steve took all his time to gather his stuff and stood up, slowly walking to the teacher's desk. He waited for Tony to notice his presence and once the man dared looking up at him, Steve was instantly speechless. He lost himself in those big brown eyes and struggled to regain impassivity. If Tony was annoyed, he did not let it show and waited patiently for the tall blond to formulate actual words.
"What was that?"
"What was what? "
"That class. Why are you even here if obviously you don't want to?"
"Listen, Blondie..."
"Steve. Steve Rogers."
"Right, listen Steve ... Not my choice to be here. They didn't ask me if I was pleased with it. They said you're gonna teach that fucking course and shut your mouth. So you'd better shut yours and wrap your head around the idea. If you want to drop the course, feel free to do so."
Drop the course? Of course not, Steve was not a quitter. He would not give up so easily and if he had to endure Tony Stark for a whole year in order to graduate, he would certainly do it. Without replying anything, he just shook his head and left the classroom in silence. He could swear Tony's gaze had followed him until he had closed the door behind him.
~~
Steve elbowed Clint and rolled his eyes. They were both sitting in the living room, Clint with the laptop on his lap.
"What? We'll just google him and if he's some kind of nobody then nothing's gonna happen. We'll just maybe find his facebook or whatever, it's not like it's forbidden to look up for someone on the internet ... It's not, right?"
"He's my teacher Clint, that's just awkward. What if he finds out?"
Clint literally burst in laughter and for the next minute, he couldn't even reply. Steve frowned and pushed him a little harder, annoyed by the fact that his friend didn't seem to take his concern seriously. Steve wasn't sure what to think of Tony and really, if he was that bright, maybe he was able to know somehow who googled his name. That was a creepy thought, but hey, he couldn't help it.
"So, Tony Stark, huh? Let's see..."
Clint typed the name and suddenly his eyes went wide.
"29,000,000 results? Who the hell is that guy!?"
"Maybe there's like a famous guy with the exactly same name. This asshole can't possibly be so popular. Images, look at the images."
And so did Clint. Steve's jaw dropped instantly when he recognized his statistics teacher, standing proudly with way too much ease and charisma, smiling in an adorable way or smirking as if he knew just how attractive he was. It was probably the case. Most of the pictures showed him with expensives suits and unaffordable sunglasses-- Seriously, who would pay three hundred dollars for sunglasses? Really? Well, Tony Stark obviously and Steve could just stare and think that, Jesus, this guy was a total freak and also a sort of celebrity! There was that image of a magazine cover showing Tony and a man both Steve and Clint couldn't recognize, with the title 'THE NEW KID Tony Stark takes reins at 21'.
"Takes reins of what?"
"Dunno... Wait. Tony Stark ... Could it be... Tony Stark as in Howard Stark as in Stark Industries?!"
A few minutes later, they were done their little research. So it turned out that Anthony Edward Stark was the CEO of Stark Industries. The guy lost his parents in a car accident when he was eighteen ... And now he was the owner of such a big company and ... a stats teacher. How come a genius billionaire with such a promising future ended up teaching math to a bunch of students in art program? That was something they would probably never know. It's not like Steve was going to ask Tony about his personal life, plus he had already said that he wasn't doing this because he wanted to. That was enough for now.
"Maybe he does deserve to be called 'Mr Stark' in fact. Damn..."
"Don't let him be a jerk with you even if he could probably ruin your life in a blink of an eye and two or three phone calls! I mean, if it wasn't for his overdeveloped brain or whatever, or for his father's company, or well the fact that he's thirty, he would be a student like everybody else and you'd be able to beat the crap out of him for being a dick. Not that you would do it but you see my point?"
"I... No. I don't think so. Well I do but-- Just drop it. I'll just act as if he was a normal teacher. An hour a day with him isn't too much of a big deal, right?"
~~
Well apparently it was.
Tony was there the next morning, with only one cup of coffee this time. Oh! There were already two empty ones in the garbage. Steve went to his place and everybody did the same before the bell rang. Tony stretched and stood up, grabbing a stack of sheets.
"Pop quiz! Put your books away, I don't want anything but your pencils on your desks! This is just a way for me to determine the average IQ of your class and what kinds of people you are. This won't count for much but I'll still grade it so you'd want to answer properly. You've got twenty minutes to do it."
This was the best way to have everybody complain, Steve thought. A pop quiz on the second class? A pop quiz on what? They hadn't learned anything so far except a few definitions they only had copied without really paying attention. Tony knew it and only waited for the class to shut up, a dirty look on his face, looking totally serious about this. Those who expected him to laugh and reassure them that it was only a joke would be frustrated. Once the calm returned, Tony distributed the sheets and went back to his desk. This time he wasn't texting, just looking at them intensely with his arms crossed and an unreadable expression on his face. Steve gulped and looked at his quiz. Five questions. He looked at the first one and was immediately taken aback, unable to retain a confused little exclamation.
"This isn't about stats at all!"
"No shit, Sherlock!"
Steve could tell by the tone of his voice that Tony was mocking him, only nobody cracked a smile at the joke, Tony being the only one looking amused.
"Have you seen the questions?! We won't be done in twenty minutes!" a girl complained.
"I did it in twenty minutes just fine. Just use those little brains of yours and stop wasting precious time asking stupid questions," was Tony's only reply.
Sure, he did it just fine. He, as in 'I am so genius that I graduated from MIT at nineteen '. Steve already knew that he had a great chance of failing this quiz and he wasn't used to that. Failing tests. He was a good student, always on task, doing his best. Well today, his best wouldn't be enough, certainly. Steve sighed and started reading the first question and thinking about it. He could feel Tony's piercing gaze on him at times and it was much distracting. He felt as if the teacher was studying him and could see how he was struggling to find an answer to these stupid questions that made no sense. A few minutes later, Steve tensed when Tony's chair creaked as he stood up and even without looking up Steve knew the man was walking between the rows to look at what they were writing. Instantly, the blond tried to cover his first answer with his arm as naturally as possible and pretended to be in deep reflection when Tony stopped beside him to peek over his shoulder. He could hear him breathing, way too close, but fortunately the teacher pulled back after a couple of seconds and walked away.
"Eyes on your sheet, Ken!"
Ken? Everybody looked up with surprise. Tony was staring at a brown-haired guy sitting next to a blond girl with way too much make up.
"You. The tanned with the stupid look on your face. Listen, just keep your eyes on your sheet, would ya? You won't find the answer in Barbie's thong. Except maybe for question four."
Steve frowned and returned to his own copy, reading number four. 'What is Heaven like?'. A little smile reached his lips even though he felt like this question didn't have its place in a math quiz.
"As for you, Barbie, I'd rather not see that your thong is dark red with lace trim. Well obviously I don't really mind seeing it but as far as I'm concerned I'm your teacher so this is inappropriate and I could get in trouble for looking at you that way, which means you'd be nice to cover it. By the way, we never had this conversation or you all get a zero. Now everybody back to work."
This time, he earned some laughter and smirked in a way that made a girl in the back of the class nearly faint. Some guys rolled theirs eyes- Steve was one of them -and they went back to their quiz. Nothing to do with math, really, and those questions didn't even have good or bad answers. Everything was relative, a matter of opinion and vision. Steve decided at this very moment that, well, maybe he couldn't be sure to get all good answers, but he would make this fun to read and still try to be logical. A good laugh could maybe earn him some points?
~~
Tony threw his head back with a groan. What an idea, giving the students a pop quiz. He could no longer correct their exasperating answers. It seemed they were all incapable and they had nothing in the brain. Even with questions like this, they could not manage to give a proper reply, something that actually made sense and wasn't all about getting laid or about stuff some five year old boys would talk about. How old were those students, really? It was hopeless.
"I really gotta teach a bunch of losers, you've got to be kidding me... Jarvis, add Keaton Pyle to the 'Kindergarden dicks' folder and Ashley Dunbar to the 'Superficial bitches' one."
He tossed both corrected quizzes on the pile on his left and sank back in his chair, bringing his red pen to his mouth to chew absently at it.
"May I suggest you find better folder names since it is your students you are classifying, Sir?"
"Don't recall asking for your opinion. These names are just fine. That's what they are, really. I want an overview of my class and their average IQ so I can, well, know what to expect from them. Not much apparently. Look at that. Eight people in Kindergarden dicks. Six in Superficial bitches. Three in Nerds and geeks. Wait, that's only seventeen. There's one missing."
"On your desk, Sir."
"Oh right. Gotta grade this one too ... Steve Rogers. Who's Steve Rogers? Sounds familiar..."
Right before his eyes, Jarvis showed him a list of his class, all the students with their names and photos. Quickly going through it, Tony found what he was looking for. Oh!
"Blondie! I knew it sounded familiar! Alright, you'd better impress me, Mr Rogers."
He knocked back his scotch and looked at the last sheet.
The first question was basically about the student's favorite kind of sandwich. Steve's answer was 'I would make French toasts with my two slices of bread. Add whipped cream and an awful lot of caramel sauce. Hot fudge sauce too. Calorie bomb.' and Tony could only smile and agree that it would be great. Awfully sweet and definitely bad because it would all go to his waist- his poor abs, they would suffer from this overdose of sugar -but he could just hit the gym after. To the second question, Tony was stunned. Steve had managed to write a part of the script of Romeo and Juliet in this fucking weird old English Tony couldn't even understand properly. How was he so good? Art student, alright, but still, everybody else had written some basic stuff. Some of them had answered by 'Deny your father and change your name. Or else, if you won’t change your name, just swear you love me and I’ll stop being a Capulet.' which was perfectly fine. Some others had written that Romeo was Romeo because Shakespeare had decided so, or had invented some stories about impostors and other stuff. But really, old English? On this question, Tony couldn't help himself: he wrote a comment in red pen. It was really annoying how Steve was good at answering questions like this. Another proof of this talent was the question three. So apparently Barney the dinosaur ruined Steve's childhood. Of course he did, Tony always knew that there was something wrong with this apparently cute purple thing. He always had appeared to him as a pedophile in disguise. Or the devil, in Steve's opinion. The tall blond even had a supporting evidence:
'Barney the purple dinosaur is Satan. Given: Barney is a cute purple dinosaur.
Extract the Roman numerals (Romans had not letter 'U', they used 'V' instead)
CVTE PVRPLE DINOSAVR
CV V L DI V
Add them : 100 + 5 + 5 + 50 + 500 + 1 + 5 = 666'
That was the fucking best answer of all time. Here again, he left a comment. And willingly gave Blondie the bonus point he was asking for, for the use of maths in his answer. Damned Steve Rogers. Stop being good! Tony was getting angry now and he couldn't even tell what for. He was annoyed, maybe by the fact that these answers actually made him smile pretty widely or because he was not able to give Steve a bad score so far. He kept reading the answers even though the idea of tearing the quiz in billion little pieces and tell Steve that he had lost it was appealing. Make him do it again, change the quiz on purpose, choose even more twisted questions. It was unhealthy, but something in him wanted to see Steve Rogers fail. Wanted to get rid of the angelic smile on the lips of this student. One class, and he could no longer stand him looking so perfect. The year would be particularly long now that Tony, for no particular or valid reason, hated Steve Rogers.
"Jarvis! Blondie just wrote that he's never been to Heaven in any possible way. Is that a confession? Like ... That so well-built version of the sweet and romantic guy is still a virgin? How is that even possible? He is as hot as a... I don't know, as a footballer, but with a brain too, you know, and he's probably awfully kind, every girl would fall for this rare specimen!"
"May I remind you that talking about how attractive the physical appearance of your students is is inappropriate, Sir?"
Tony groaned and threw his pen across the room, only to stand up and go pick it up after a few seconds of reflexion. He was acting stupid and childish. Pepper would yell at him if she saw him. Time to be a damn grown man and finish to grade this quiz so he could stop thinking about it. He read the last question- The most important part of the body? -and bit his lips as he looked at Steve's answer, pretty sure he would find something amazing again. And amazing it was, excepted that Tony had not anticipated the explosion of feelings it created in him. The sudden feeling of loneliness that crushed him hard and generated that lump in his throat.
'It’s the shoulder. It can hold the head of a friend or a loved one when they cry. Everybody needs a shoulder in life. It is sympathetic to the pain of others.'
Screw you, Steve Rogers. He tried his best to write a sweet comment because this answer really deserved one, but his heart wasn't in it. Steve's copy was really covered with red by the end of the correction.
All Tony wanted to do was curl into a ball and sob in the corner of the workshop. The truth in Steve's words was hard to bear. Tony knew he was right and it made it worse for him. He had no one. No shoulder to support him, never. He and Pepper? Not working. Rhodey? He would not cry on Rhodey's shoulder. He was his best friend, but somehow it wasn't enough for Tony to feel comfortable enough to open his heart. Tony Stark is a man who cries alone in the dark, mostly when he is drunk, and only when nobody can see him. Tony Stark is a man who thinks he has everything because he's rich and popular and he has everything he wants, even tons of girls to sleep with whenever he wants. But in fact, deep inside, he knows he's got nothing at all. What are all the material possessions when you miss the most important thing? One can pretend to live perfectly fine without love. But he cannot really do it. He isn't fine at all.
"Jarvis ... Create a new folder for Steve Rogers."
"How would you like to name it Sir?"
"I haven't made up my mind yet. Just call it 'Rare specimen' for now."
Tony stood up and grabbed his empty glass.
"Fuck, I really need more scotch."